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TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese lawmaker handed Emperor Akihito a letter on Thursday expressing fear about the health impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, breaking a taboo by trying to involve the emperor in politics.

Taro Yamamoto, who is also an anti-nuclear activist, gave Akihito the letter during a garden party, setting off a storm of protest on the Internet from critics shocked at his action.

"I wanted to directly tell the emperor of the current situation," Yamamoto told reporters, referring to the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant north of Tokyo, which has been leaking radioactivity since it was battered by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.

"I wanted him to know about the children who have been contaminated by radiation. If this goes on, there will be serious health impacts."

Akihito inclined his head as he took the letter in his hand but then handed it to a nearby chamberlain. Yamamoto said he made no comment.

Within days, Fukushima nuclear plant operators will begin what is being described as the most dangerous phase of the decommissioning process so far.

In an operation never before attempted, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) will start removing 1,331 highly radioactive used fuel assemblies from a deep pool which sits high above the ground in a shattered reactor building.

[snip]

By Takaya Yamaguchi and Kentaro Hamada

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) should be stripped of the responsibility for shutting down its crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, according to a draft proposal by a panel of Japan’s ruling party.

TEPCO has been widely criticized for repeated missteps, poor planning and a lack of disclosure in its efforts to clear up the site of the nuclear disaster.

A task force formed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) suggests that responsibility for the massive work of decommissioning the Fukushima plant be stripped from the giant utility in its current form - either by creating a separate unit within TEPCO, breaking the unit off as a separate company or hiving it off as a government-affiliated, but independent, administrative agency.

A person familiar with the LDP panel’s deliberations said it favors the option of creating a separate organization within TEPCO to handle decommissioning - a job that could take decades as massive amounts of toxic water and spent fuel are removed and stored elsewhere.

The policy recommendations will be presented to Abe as soon as next week.

“We need to have a prompt conclusion to create a clear and realistic organization,” said the draft proposal, reviewed by Reuters.

The steel structure for the use of the spent fuel removal from the cooling pool is seen at the No. 4 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant .AP Photo/Noboru Hashimto, Pool

TOKYO —

Japanese regulators on Wednesday formally approved the removal of fuel rods from an uncontained cooling pool at a damaged reactor building considered the highest risk at a crippled nuclear plant.

Removing the fuel rods from the No. 4 reactor cooling pool is the first major step in a decommissioning process that is expected to last decades at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, where three reactors melted down after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority said at its weekly meeting that the proposal by the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, is appropriate and that the removal can start in November as planned, following an on-site inspection by regulators. Japanese public broadcaster NHK said the removal would start as early as Nov 8, but TEPCO said it may not announce the date in advance, citing security reasons.

“It’s a major step toward decommissioning,” said Toyoshi Fuketa, one of the authority’s five commissioners. “Moving the fuel rods out of No. 4 can significantly reduce the risk at the plant.”...s reinforced the structure around the pool and says the building can survive a major earthquake, but the unenclosed pool on the unit’s top floor, which contains 1,533 fuel rods, has caused international concern. About 200 of the rods that are unused and safer are expected to be the first to be removed...

...“It’s a totally different operation than removing normal fuel rods from a spent fuel pool,” Tanaka said at a regular news conference. “They need to be handled extremely carefully and closely monitored. You should never rush or force them out, or they may break.”

He said it would be a disaster if fuel rods are pulled forcibly and are damaged or break open when dropped from the pool, located about 30 meters above ground, releasing highly radioactive material. “I’m much more worried about this than contaminated water,” Tanaka said.

TEPCO has prepared a massive steel structure that comes with a remote-controlled crane to remove the fuel rods, which will be placed into a protective cask and transferred to a joint cooling pool inside a nearby building. To make room for the fuel rods, the company has been moving those already in the joint pool to safer storage in dry casks at a separate plant location.

The utility plans to empty the pool by end of 2014, and remove fuel rods from other pools at three other wrecked reactors over several years before digging into their melted cores around 2020.

[snip]

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Published: October 29, 2013

The Japanese government is poised to enact a
secrecy law that will undermine the people’s right to know. The law will give
all government ministries the right to classify information related to defense,
diplomacy, counterintelligence and counterterrorism as a state secret. But
there is no guideline as to what constitutes a secret. This lack of definition
means the government could well designate any inconvenient information secret.

Under the proposed law, government officials
found to have revealed secrets could be jailed up to 10 years. Such a provision
would give officials even greater incentive to label documents secret rather
than risk their release.

Until now, only the Defense Ministry had the
authority to classify information as a “defense secret.” Its record is abysmal.
Of the 55,000 documents the ministry classified secret between 2006 and 2011,
34,000 were destroyed at the end of a particular secrecy period, depending on
the document. And only one was declassified for public release.

The new law would allow the secrecy period to
be extended indefinitely. And it further limits government accountability by
making no clear provision for sharing secrets with elected representatives in
the national Diet.

Monday, 28 October 2013

[FB snip]

If there was anything you thought was still missing from your files on nuclear workers, it is this:

52 minutes ago

I hammered out the translation of the e-mail from a Fukushima Daiichi's worker sent to Mr. Kazuhiro Matsumoto.

Quite：Thanks for your good job. I heard that you posted what I had told you the other day on your FB.

Well, since it is my day off, I am writing you our current situation.

Honestly, our technology available now is not enough (to remove the spent fuel rods). We have a severe manpower shortage and the radiation level is way too high to go near the site.

To make the matters worse, recently we lost more workers due to TEPCO’s weird atmosphere.

The number of workers is less than a half of what we used to have in the summer.

As for tanks, maybe this has not reported yet, there are leaking spots here and there. Two to three workers are assigned to check more than 400 tanks and pipes. This kind of work load is too much to finish in a day.

The workers are told to do this every day. TEPCO takes measure for whatever the problems reported by the media but nothing has been done for other issues (that are not covered by the media).

When I have a Geiger counter, my 10 sievert meter goes off the scale easily here and there.

This happens when I am 50 centimeters away. So if I get any closer, I will be dead.

We attached a censor at the tip of a stick (because of this situation).

Recently I noticed that something is going on in the number 4 reactor’s building. But I heard that whatever they are doing there is not going well.

There seem to be numerous rubbles besides spent fuel rods, which is hindering their job. They are removing the rubbles as they move the rods, which is a difficult task. They seem to be doing this as they use a camera, not as they looking down from the top. On top of that, although the workers are not complete amateur but not used to do this type of job, there is no one to show them the know-how because experienced ones are all gone.

We workers are not informed on anything concrete officially. Exchanging our experiences among us makes us so scared.

Are they gonna let us evacuate? I have no idea. We have no perspectives in the future though. Before I got this job, I saw a progress schedule chart on TV. Now I can say that it was a bxxx sxxx.

Even now rubbles are scattered around. Sometimes we spay water, sometimes times suck it up, which does not look like making any progress or based on any concrete (strategic work) process.

Surely (outer) structures are there. But they are merely preventing the reactor buildings from further crumbling down. Nothing has been done for the area that melted through.

Lately I wonder why the media does not cover the radiation level of the contaminated water. It has been exacerbated with higher level than before.

FYI, the level of contamination fluctuates every day. It could be much higher than what the media reports. So do not trust their numbers as they are.

I can tell you more. Here, people are changing so frequently that if you work about three months, you are already considered as a veteran. Don’t you think it’s weird? I guess this is the proof of not accomplishing much. I have done various jobs and, from my experience, I can say that this situation is not good. No one can go near (to the site), can do nothing, or TEPCO does not give us any instruction.

They just contracts out the jobs and don’t care. I can see that clearly from here. Heck with “Fukushima’s recovery,” it will take at least 50 years more if they continue in this way.

For example, there must be something that generates extremely high heat as much as steam comes up when it rains. It goes up in the air. I have no idea what our radiation level could be here but all I can do is to look at the steam thinking that it would eventually be blown all over by north and south winds. This is our situation.

If someone asks us if there was anything different from before, I can say that nothing has changed. I will report you again. All I can say now is that the radiation level here is extremely high. I often see the Geiger counter goes off the scale. This makes me so scared.

Physicians for Social Responsibility, IPPNW, etc., Oct. 18,
2013: [...] the emission of radioactive particles from Fukushima Dai-ichi
continues until today and that the available source term [i.e. total radioactive
release] estimates only deal with the emissions during the first weeks of the
disaster, it is important to look at which source term estimate to use [...]
UNSCEAR [United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of
Atomic Radiation] bases its calculations on the source term estimate of
the Japanese Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), an organization that was severely
criticized [...] for its collusion with the nuclear industry [...] The renowned
Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) found a release of cesium-137 three
times higher than the JAEA estimate. [...] By relying on data from neutral
international institutions rather than the Japanese nuclear industry,
accusations of selective data sampling could be reduced. Also, it is important
to include not only iodine-131 and cesium-137 in atmospheric release
assessments, such as JAEA, but also radioisotopes such as iodine-133,
strontium-89/90 and plutonium-isotopes, as they were also detected in soil,
groundwater and sediment samples in Fukushima Prefecture.

By MARI YAMAGUCHITOKYO —Workers overfill a tank, spilling radioactive water on the ground. Another mistakenly pushes a button, stalling a pump for a vital cooling system. Six others get soaked with toxic water when they remove the wrong pipe. All over the course of one week in October.

A string of mishaps this year at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, which was swamped by a tsunami in 2011, is raising doubts about the operator’s ability to tackle the crisis and prompting concern that another disaster could be in the making.

Worried Japanese regulators are taking a more hands-on approach than usual to seek solutions to what he says appear to be fundamental problems.

Human error is mostly to blame, as workers deal with a seemingly unending stream of crises. Tanaka said earlier this month the repeated “silly mistakes” are a sign of declining morale and sense of responsibility. The operator, known as TEPCO, acknowledged a systemic problem in a recent report: Workers under tight deadlines tend to cut corners, making mistakes more likely; at times, they don’t fully understand their assignment or procedures.

The utility has been losing experienced workers as they reach their radiation exposure limits, and hundreds of others are quitting jobs seen as underpaid given the difficulty and health risks. Regulators have urged the plant to have enough supervisors to oversee the workers on site; TEPCO says it has added staff and is ensuring proper field-management.

Japan’s nuclear watchdog on Monday urged “bold and drastic” action to fix problems with radioactive water at Fukushima, as it warned of the growing risks over coming months.

Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, told the president of operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) that no expense should be spared in getting to grips with the water leaks that have beset the plant over the last half-a-year.

He also told Naomi Hirose that the removal of spent nuclear fuel rods from a cooling pool, which is due to begin next month, would be a difficult and complicated task.

Tanaka urged Hirose to “carry out bold and drastic reforms and make a long-term plan that can reduce uneasiness”, according to Katsuhiko Ikeda, secretary-general of the authority, who also attended the meeting.

In particular, Tanaka asked the company to send more engineers to the plant and update facilities there “without sparing money”, Ikeda told reporters.

TEPCO is battling to clean up the mess caused when reactors went into meltdown after the March 2011 tsunami struck and knocked out cooling systems.

Thousands of tons of water, used since then to cool reactors or polluted after picking up radioactive material, is being stored in huge storage tanks at the site on Japan’s northeast coast.

A series of setbacks including water leaks that have carried radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean have rocked confidence that Asia’s largest utility can tame the world’s worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl.